Title: BN.com STOLE OUR NAME!
needmorezoloft - March 11, 2008 12:14 PM (GMT)
I read my email this morning, and I had one from BN.com
The subject: This Week -- Coupons, Book Obsessed, Voices of Suspense, More
Book Obsessed.. are they giving us props. I just had to dive in and read.. only to find out they stole our name. :angry2:
| QUOTE |
Book Obsessed
The weekly program that takes you inside the minds, hearts, and homes of the truly Book Obsessed. Only on BN.com/obsessed. |
I guess we're not the only obsessed group. :giggle:
Marlene - March 11, 2008 12:45 PM (GMT)
What the Hell. You scared the pooping shit of me.
let me go lookie :lol:
Aha it is from Barnes and Noble. Is this a new serie?
needmorezoloft - March 11, 2008 01:51 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Marlene @ Mar 11 2008, 06:45 AM) |
What the Hell. You scared the pooping shit of me.
let me go lookie :lol:
Aha it is from Barnes and Noble. Is this a new serie? |
It's a huge book seller.. kinda like Amazon.
EllyMae58 - March 11, 2008 01:53 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (needmorezoloft @ Mar 11 2008, 06:51 AM) |
| QUOTE (Marlene @ Mar 11 2008, 06:45 AM) | What the Hell. You scared the pooping shit of me.
let me go lookie :lol:
Aha it is from Barnes and Noble. Is this a new serie? |
It's a huge book seller.. kinda like Amazon.
|
I think she's referring to the BookObsessed thing, not the site. :giggle:
needmorezoloft - March 11, 2008 02:04 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (EllyMae58 @ Mar 11 2008, 07:53 AM) |
| QUOTE (needmorezoloft @ Mar 11 2008, 06:51 AM) | | QUOTE (Marlene @ Mar 11 2008, 06:45 AM) | What the Hell. You scared the pooping shit of me.
let me go lookie :lol:
Aha it is from Barnes and Noble. Is this a new serie? |
It's a huge book seller.. kinda like Amazon.
|
I think she's referring to the BookObsessed thing, not the site. :giggle:
|
Yep.. lol it's still early for me :P
Marlene - March 11, 2008 02:26 PM (GMT)
haha thank you Kel. I was.
:lol:
CheriePie - March 11, 2008 03:59 PM (GMT)
Hiya! I probably should've put it out here but yeah, boogal reported it to us a few weeks back. (Remember she works for B&N so she was one of the first people to see that.)
Since fantasy is in law school, I asked her to look into if there's any implications because of it, but I hadn't bothered to put anything about it out here since I figured that would be one of the first questions, and at this point, we weren't sure.
Here's what fantasy said, and perhaps msjoanna, our other resident lawyer, can confirm:
| QUOTE (fantasy221 @ Mar 4 2008, 11:03 AM) |
yes, I'm in law school. I don't think it would be a problem though because it's probably unlikely that B&N could get a trademark for the name of their program. It's a pretty descriptive term and in order to get a trademark of a descriptive term you have to be able to show that the term has secondary meaning. For example, isn't there a no frills cereal called Crunchy O's or something - its like the low cost version of cheerios... Well if the Crunchy O's people wanted to trademark the brand name, they would have to show that when people hear the name Crunchy O's they think of their product first and nothing else, because otherwise the term Crunchy O's just describes the type of cereal. I think it would be the same here - B&N would have to be able to show that when people heard of Book Obsessed their first thought was of their program. At the same time though, there's also a doctrine that says "first in time gets the territory" which essentially means that because we were using the name first, we would likely be able to continue using it. I'm not sure how the meaning of territory is construed on the internet though. I'd have to look into that (but not for a while since I'm swamped with school things at the moment).
My first instinct is that it's probably nothing to worry about but I can try to do some investigating later. |
GateGypsy - March 11, 2008 08:12 PM (GMT)
I just saw the email about that today! I was over here to open a thread about it, but you beat me to it :lol: I'm glad no one thinks we'll run into any legal issues with B&N!
Just yesterday, my fiancé was attempting to have a conversation with me about my book clutter, and he said stuff like, "getting more shelves wouldn't fix it; if we had more shelves, you'd just fill them!" I think I will have him watch these bookobsessed videos so he understands how very mild I am compared to some :rofl:
CheriePie - March 11, 2008 11:02 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (GateGypsy @ Mar 11 2008, 04:12 PM) |
| Just yesterday, my fiancé was attempting to have a conversation with me about my book clutter, and he said stuff like, "getting more shelves wouldn't fix it; if we had more shelves, you'd just fill them!" I think I will have him watch these bookobsessed videos so he understands how very mild I am compared to some :rofl: |
There are a few threads here... darn that I can't recall which ones in particular right now, where people posted pictures of their bookshelves (perhaps someone can fill in the blank here).
So just show him some of those and ask him to be happy your bookshelves don't look like that! :lol: :bash:
msjoanna - March 12, 2008 10:02 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (CheriePie @ Mar 11 2008, 11:59 AM) |
Hiya! I probably should've put it out here but yeah, boogal reported it to us a few weeks back. (Remember she works for B&N so she was one of the first people to see that.)
Since fantasy is in law school, I asked her to look into if there's any implications because of it, but I hadn't bothered to put anything about it out here since I figured that would be one of the first questions, and at this point, we weren't sure.
Here's what fantasy said, and perhaps msjoanna, our other resident lawyer, can confirm:
| QUOTE (fantasy221 @ Mar 4 2008, 11:03 AM) | yes, I'm in law school. I don't think it would be a problem though because it's probably unlikely that B&N could get a trademark for the name of their program. It's a pretty descriptive term and in order to get a trademark of a descriptive term you have to be able to show that the term has secondary meaning. For example, isn't there a no frills cereal called Crunchy O's or something - its like the low cost version of cheerios... Well if the Crunchy O's people wanted to trademark the brand name, they would have to show that when people hear the name Crunchy O's they think of their product first and nothing else, because otherwise the term Crunchy O's just describes the type of cereal. I think it would be the same here - B&N would have to be able to show that when people heard of Book Obsessed their first thought was of their program. At the same time though, there's also a doctrine that says "first in time gets the territory" which essentially means that because we were using the name first, we would likely be able to continue using it. I'm not sure how the meaning of territory is construed on the internet though. I'd have to look into that (but not for a while since I'm swamped with school things at the moment).
My first instinct is that it's probably nothing to worry about but I can try to do some investigating later. |
|
With all the usual disclaimers that this isn't actually legal advice, I basically agree with what fantasy221 said.
If you wanted to pick a fight with BN, you might have some grounds (i.e., to tell them not to use the name), but it wouldn't be a slam-dunk, and I'm not sure it's worth it in any case.
Without registering one's trademark, it can get dicey trying to prove exactly what you "own," but in this instance I don't think it's likely to be a big deal. We clearly have the domain name already and have maintained an active site here long before BN rolled out its name, so no problem on the "internet squatter" front. Thus, I think it'd be hard for them to pick a fight with you about it.
It might, however, effect the search engine rankings. I don't know if anyone here cares about that or is worried about it, but BN is such a behemouth that they may ratchet up the ratings rather quickly. Not a legal issue, per se.
SimplyCee - March 13, 2008 12:25 PM (GMT)
I saw the email too and I thought "WOW who knew we were such a huge deal!" Then I saw that they weren't talking about us. Definitely burst my bubble.
needmorezoloft - March 13, 2008 01:27 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (SimplyCee @ Mar 13 2008, 06:25 AM) |
| I saw the email too and I thought "WOW who knew we were such a huge deal!" Then I saw that they weren't talking about us. Definitely burst my bubble. |
That was pretty much my deal too.
I really didn't even think of it as a legal issue. I just kinda though.. um wow we're famous... then.. um no.. we're not. :P
CheriePie - March 13, 2008 06:43 PM (GMT)
First thing I thought....
Those bastards!! They better not expect us to give up our name and domain for them! :rant: :giggle: